


Work for it, Bitch (that time Ed tried to make the military censors blush)

by ang3lba3, Mellomailbox



Series: Polycule? More like poly COOL [3]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Ed Swears, Getting Together, Infidelity, Letters, Love Confessions, Love Letters, M/M, Mutual Pining, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Sorta Infidelity at this specific moment in time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:34:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21926029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ang3lba3/pseuds/ang3lba3, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellomailbox/pseuds/Mellomailbox
Summary: A series of letters between Ed and Roy. Ongoing.This series describes a polycule between a lot of major FMA:B characters. Main pairings vary per fic, though others may be referenced in any. See series summary for complete explanation of pairings.
Relationships: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Series: Polycule? More like poly COOL [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1578928
Comments: 11
Kudos: 72





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Roy's bits, a.k.a. the boring stuff, written by me. Ed's bits, a.k.a. why we're all here and also the funny bits, written by ang3lba3.
> 
> Words within || are censored. If there's something that you think should be censored but does not have those, assume that the censors missed it.

Dear Edward, 

I hope that Resembool is treating you and Alphone well. I imagine that the warmth and proximity to nature is wonderful for Alphonse, and having two doctors so close by must be a relief to you. Give Ms. Rockbell my regards and congratulations on her doctorate. I also send my congratulations on your engagement. I’m sure Ms. Rockbell will make you very happy, Edward. I pray your engagement is short. 

I’m writing you per Lieutenant Fuery’s request. He’d like to find an address to write Alphonse; you left so suddenly and did not leave a forwarding address. The one in your file was listed as, and I quote, “Bum||fuck|| Nowhere. When your Bum starts to feel ||Fuckened||, turn left, go three miles. If you see a cow with a ||penis|| shaped bit on her coat, you’ve gone too far. If you see a screaming wench with a wrench you’re in the right spot. Shoot on sight.” 

Your humor at the age of 12 was quite scintillating. 

I hope you are resting and I look forward to your response. 

Yours,  
Brigadier General Roy Mustang.

~

dearest to my heart grand bastard and general of ||bullshit||, 

ok not really but seriously. knock off the flowery addresses. just call me edward or fullmetal, you dont have to write me a love letter

speaking of flowery addresses: that took yall HOW LONG to notice?! has it just been copied onto every formal piece of documentation that needs my address? what am i saying. of course it has. this is why youre the general of ||bullshit||. 

al’s in xing, so sending it to rockbell auto - which you did with this letter? anyways? - is pointless. i guess you can pay for international postage if you want, but im going to see him in...oh a few years. probably about the same amount of time to get it to him. 

im not sure what youre implying by saying you hope i have a short engagement. or what? she’ll realize her mistake and call it off? you’re worried you’re getting too far into your twilight years to enjoy a wedding? either way dont worry about it silver fox, wedding invitations are already in the mail. im pretty sure one is even going to you, if your decrepit wrinkled body can make it here. its what, a 2 day trip? do your best not to die of old age on the trains.

[a portion scribbled out, thoroughly and with prejudice, so that it is only recoverable through alchemic means:  
scintillating is a fascinating choice of words. close enough to titillating, even. you titilated by bumfucking, mustang?]

tell Feury theres something on his shirt. make sure to yell ‘made you look!’ if he checks. ive still got that scintillating wit, you can see

ed

[on the flipside of the letter is a crude squiggle, surrounded by numbers and letters with no discernable pattern. The only intelligible part says ‘work for it, bitch’. With that context the crude squiggle goes from ‘crudely drawn’ to ‘crude drawing of a man on a stripper pole’.]


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I'm writing Roy and an3lba3 is Ed <3

My Dearest Edward,

It saddens me that you equate my last missive to that of a love letter. Trust me, Fullmetal, the day you receive a love letter from me you will know. The message will come to life as you read and I will be there; my words heavy on your tongue, my voice warm in your ear, my intention like silk on your skin. 

Perhaps you will not have the opportunity to write Ms. Rockbell now that you are settling down. Should you find the occasion, I should hope you learned some things from me on the ways of seduction, or your opinion of a ‘love’ letter may fall quite short. 

It was cute of you to try and mark out your message. In a twist of irony, if you’d simply left the message intact the censors would have blacked it out for you. As it stands, I was able to recover it. 

The answer, Fullmetal, is obvious. 

I’m looking forward to reuniting soon. It saddens me that Al is so far, as we missed the chance to see him fully recovered. The team will be accompanying me to the wedding, and we hope to see him there. 

Send Ms. Rockbell our regards,  
Yours,  
Silver Fox

[a series of letters and numbers are neatly boxed on the back of the letter. the message spells out : CONGRATS ON BABY]

~

[The letter is dated several months after the one from Roy, although not nearly nine months later. The outside of the envelope has a stain that might be baby food, or what happens to food after it comes out of the baby.

Not detailed: the long conversation at the wedding about how it was rude to imply they had a short engagement so Winry wouldn’t be visibly pregnant. The longer, louder conversation about the repeated use of the word ‘short’ in the previous conversation. The brief moment, the ten or fifteen or twenty minutes, that no one can ever know about and that they will never acknowledge. The screaming wrestling match that ruined Ed’s tux, required Roy to get a premature haircut, and almost burned down Mrs Calloway’s barn is not only not mentioned but actually a matter of national security and thus highly classified. Ed could be court martialed for assaulting a superior, after all.

Never put into writing: the deep existential crisis Edward spent the days leading up to his wedding in, wondering what the hell the obvious answer was to Roy and bumfucking. The way everyone kept assuming it was cold feet, and the way no one laughed when he pressed his cold steel toes into their skin and said ‘no, only a cold foot’. How when he went to sleep at night he rolled the words “the day you receive a love letter from me you will know” around in his head, rolled them around in his mouth like a jaw breaker, afraid to bite down but unwilling to spit them out. How he didn’t let himself think on the words immediately following, how in a fit of pique he burned the letter even though every line was burned into his corneas already. He caught the words out of the corners of his eyes when he saw Winry walking down the aisle. They were right and center when he threw the first punch at Roy during the reception, because how dare he, _how dare he_ , how _dare_ he.]

Bastard,

havent written for obvious reasons. if were both unlucky some of those reasons will have gotten on the envelope and the letter. i wanna say i tried my best to stop it but theres no guarantee my good mood will last long enough for that

you already know that im going to xing soon, of course, but i thought i’d include an address since you always enjoy it when i do that. [An address written in Xingese characters follows. It is not a real address, but censors aren’t paid enough and do not have the education to know this. It roughly translates to “Lick lick lick Ling’s balls, 69520”.]

heard about you and hawkeye. about time, right? what the hell were you two waiting on anyways. everyone could see it coming a mile off. everyone but [the next bit is splotched out by what definitely used to be pureed carrots. It’s unrecoverable, even assuming there was something of note to recover.]

i have a piece of advice: hire a ||goddamn|| nanny when you two tie the knot. its unfair to make riza take care of one baby all by herself, much less two. youre the baby. youre a baby. im spelling this out for you as simply as possible, because ive actually got a baby right now, and its really given me insight into how to interact with you

Ed

[encoded on the back, beside a picture of what… might... be a horse? It looks a lot like a very ugly dog, and also like no animal that has ever lived. It is labeled ‘You’. Hidden in its mane are small strings of letters and numbers which can eventually be parsed to ‘please write back im so’. It was abandoned partway through, or perhaps purposefully smudged]


	3. Chapter 3

[When he gets the letter he doesn’t even need to open it, covered in _something_ so familiar from the days of Ed’s so-called ‘reports.’ This one isn’t rain damaged, and isn’t covered in blood, and isn’t written on startlingly cheap bathroom paper, and so he gets a look from Riza when he holds it by it’s corner like it’s going to bite.

He doesn’t need to open it, after what happened at the wedding. Of course, he opens it.

Ed’s misery sinks into him, a miasma contained between the safety of an envelope. _Bastard_ , it reads, and regret pools in his palms and his side and mostly behind his eyes. He closes them, catches Riza watching, and stuffs the rest of the letter away for another time.

It takes him an hour and six glasses of whiskey to get through it.]

My Dearest Edward,

I’m sorry, too. It must have been difficult working with an infant all those years when you were but an infant yourself. Since you seem to see me as an expert on the matter, might I suggest forgoing the carrots in the future? It’s universally understood that no person actually likes carrots, and so forcing them on a child is unjust punishment.

Your Xingan is actually quite good. [In Xingan: Something on your mind? It’s on mine.]

Don’t worry about your mistakes in your last letter; I know that Xingan addresses are confusing and luckily Alphonse has already written with an accurate one.

[scribbled out, but not well enough: My relationship to Riza is one of convenience and politics. You of all people should]

My engagement won’t be so [scribbled: short] brief as yours, rest assured. Our plans for the future may well last us years. I am blessed that I have found myself someone so patient and so willing to stand by my side through hardship.

~~-Edward, I know this is-~~

~~-Parenting is-~~

Maes used to show up at my apartment at ungodly hours smelling foul and crying. He was always desperately in love with Elysia, you know this. Everyone knows this. And yet there he was, exhausted and tense and so sure that he was wrong, that he was going to ruin her and Gracia and his life. He said to me, if it wasn’t for the fact that my place had free booze he would have found himself at work instead.

Edward. My alcohol is still free, and Maes was the best father I ever knew. You remind me of him.

Yours,  
Brigadier General Mustang

[on the back is another perfectly square block of text and numbers that read: The way I feel for you cannot be expressed via words of mouth or pen. Tell me to stop.]

[In the envelope is a picture of Roy and Maes at a bar, baby Elysia propped up on the bartop between them and staring wide-eyed at the camera.]

~

[Edward’s reply takes two months to reach Roy. To a casual observer, this would not seem rushed - two months, for correspondence? To an observer who cannot read Xingese, or who does not understand Xingese postmarks, the letter will appear to only have one stamp. Not rushed, not rushed at all. In Amestris you slather 50 cens postmarks over every inch of the envelope that isn’t the address if you want a rush delivery.

So it’s not rushed, not at all. Unless...

You understand the Xingese for ‘RUSH DELIVERY’ and the special stamp used for high priority missives. Missives sent out with an individual rider as soon as they can be supplied, not with the usual trading wagons. The stamp that says “I paid this rider in full for their time, equipment, and then a bonus for hazardous conditions.”]

mustang,

haha ur so dumb. tucker’s not on solid food - or wasnt, anyways. if i remember right, that was from winrys health drink phase. a phase you should consider.

is it that theyre too hard? too long? theyve got these baby carrots now, and if that fails, you can do what winry did and boil then mash them. but i always took you for the kind of man who could handle a piece of hard and long food with dignity. never figured youd be one to choke when presented with some carrots. but actually now that im thinking about it… you did have a rather extreme reaction to the carrots at my wedding reception, even after you’d basically begged for some

did you know carrots are recommended for ocular health? i know you’ve had some eye troubles. you probably wouldnt have, if youd eaten more carrots. its not a guarantee or anything, im just saying that carrots are good for you, and you should give have given them more of a chance. earlier. ~~it probably would have solved a lot of problems in your present and future, if you’d given them a chance sooner in life, before they made other~~

here, i asked around for some recipes in xing, since maybe you just dont like the way amestris does carrots. this is the one i think would work for you best:

[In Xingese, roughly formatted to appear as a recipe:

WHY DIDN’T YOU DO ANYTHING SOONER SMOOTHIE

2 hours after im married and

300 reasons why we shouldnt kiss

4 such a smart man youre a goddamn idiot

2 years and you could have done something anything but you just let me think

That I was alone in this. Also how the fuck is 300 going to work out. Is that going to look like preheat the oven? It better. I didnt think this through. I cant think things through with you. And if I could stop I would but thats the fucking issue isnt it. I need you to understand that]

Winry and me are doing really good. being married to her is...every dream come true, if i was ever the kind of person to dream about stuff like that. you knew me as a kid, im pretty sure we all thought that i’d find my true love in a cage fight. but she understands more about me than i thought anyone could, and we only have to resort to cage fighting every once in a while. and since im in Xing now, i have her full permission to just cage fight with Ling until i get home. [Scribbled out deeply, then written over several times, so that it is completely unrecoverable by any means except as an obvious mistake: when im back in Amestris she’d probably let me out some days to cage fight with you, but that probably breaks like fifty regulations so we’ll have to be hush hush about it]

fatherhood is overwhelming sometimes, sure, but I’m more the kind of guy to throw himself into work than into a bottle. you’ve got a good alchemical library at home, right? maybe you can make a dent in your paperwork and i can make a dent in mine. we can have coffee or something, if drinking solidarity is that important. easier on both of our livers, because if i start drinking until im not stressed i’ll stop when ~~im dead~~. you start eating healthier. carrots! im telling you! theres studies!

Fullmetal

[On the back of the three pages a picture. When assembled it’s still fairly difficult to understand. It could be construed by a mind in the gutter to be a man fellating and choking on a carrot, although it really appears to be a maybe-human figure trying to eat an entire traffic cone and failing miserably. Doodles of eye glasses fill every other centimeter, and the occasional eye.]


	4. Chapter 4

[a last minute delivery arrives just as ed’s packing to return to amestris. he receives a letter from winry and from roy, as well as a book carefully wrapped in travel paper with no return address. it’s marked with a military stamp identical to the one on the letter from roy.]

My Dearest, Edward,

If I had known that you had such a sensitivity to discussion of phallic vegetables I wouldn’t have mentioned them. Whatever studies you’ve read on ocular health, rest assured that I have also read them, and all of the others that I can find. I’m unsure how you found out about my predicament (It was Havoc, wasn’t it? You can tell me, I promise I won’t punish him too harshly) but understand that this is a situation that needs to stay completely under wraps. My enemies cannot learn of any weaknesses I may or may not possess, Fullmetal. [scribbled out but still legible if you’re clever with deciphering: that includes you, my dear.]

How is it that you’re allowed to lay your hands on the Emperor or Xing? It’s my understanding that to injure the Emperor, even in consent, is an executable crime. It continues to amaze me the ways that you manage to worm your way around previously undeniable truths. You mold the world into one that fits you, and that inspires me, Edward, inspires me and drives me _mad_.

That must be it. I’m mad for you. It’s a tragedy, really, that I’ve diagnosed this disease without you here as witness to its treatment. ~~(It’s you. You’re the treatment. Your hands, your voice, your wit. If I could bottle you and administer you thrice daily, perhaps I could finally break this fever you’ve given me?)~~

Your understanding of Xingan measuring systems must be flawed. Let me recommend a recipe from my mother.

[In Xingese]  
Titled: After the Promised Day

I lived in a world  
Suffocated in ashes  
Until I saw you

Your eyes were so bright  
Glinting gold in my darkness  
It had been so long

My hands are dirty  
Unfit to stroke the rooted  
Purity of you

And yet I longed to  
Caress the ribbons of light  
That brought me relief

I fear what I am  
A deep rot in your root  
Desire and want

You already bloom  
Bright and startling in joy  
For one with clean hands

To take that away  
A crime fit for me, wretched  
Still cruel to us both

To gasp in your warmth  
To seek ecstasy in you  
To yearn for your light

I am a weak man  
Unable to resist you  
My regret like ash

And yet I still long  
To stroke the root of your love  
To bask in your light

I do have quite the library at my home, yes. There are even a few texts that would interest you, if I know the sorts of things that you desire. Which I am beginning to believe that I do.

Perhaps engaging in drink wouldn’t be the best course of action the next time we meet, especially considering our rather incendiary interaction the last time. I’m unsure if someone of your hyperactivity needs more caffeine. I _do_ have a nice, herbal tea. Calming. Soothing. Warm. Smooth.

Did you know that caffeine stunts growth?

Yours,  
Roy

~

[Roy’s letter reaches Ed a month later. A day after that, an urgent message reaches him: facilitated by Roy but not from him.

Winry, pregnant, needing a faster way to reach him than letters through the occasional trading caravans. Winry, morning sick, takes a train with Tucker and arrives in Central. Roy, caught red faced and daydreaming about her husband, does everything he can to get the message through. He bribes, weedles, and threatens the emergency radio stations, telling them to pass along a two sentence message to the Emperor. The Emperor passes the message to Ed.

Ed and Al start towards home.

In the desert, he writes:]

Must-be-a-dumbass-ang,

i don’t need havoc to tell me that you suddenly need reading glasses, or to notice that you squint more than pinako. i also don’t need havoc to spot cataracts in the wizened elderly. because my eyes still work. work so well that i don’t consider carrots a ~~phalic falluc~~ penis. you ever hear the phrase ‘eastern girls make do?’ it’s not with carrots, ya city slicker.i fa

~~cucumbers, zucchini (god we gotta find something to do with it, the shit is a disaster every year), coRN, did you even THINK~~

~~speaking of carrots~~

~~carrot recipes are~~

FUCK what the FUCK was that POEM

[This version of the letter never makes it out of the desert. It barely makes it a few days into the desert. When Al startles him, it makes its way very, _very_ deep into the earth of the desert. Over the years it will erode to nothing.

It’s probably for the best.

He can try again. Do better.

_What the FUCK was that POEM-]_

suckstang,

now you know i’m not the kind of guy to insult someone’s dead mother. that’s a two way street, so i’ll let you get one good crack in if you really gotta, but i just gotta say: your mom was a SHIT writer. i’ve never seen a recipe more doomed for disaster.

heres a tip i learned from my mom, who was _actually_ a good cook before the whole you know dying thing: you can’t put two incompatible flavor sets together. if you really hate burned food, burning your lemons isn’t going to make them better!!! and who the hell chars lemons in the first place, huh. that recipe’s a mess.

i know you’re the flame alchemist, but you don’t have to char everything you see to cinders. its not built into your dna. you can let the pot goddamn simmer sometimes. not everything has to be a

fuck i cant do this i cant do metaphors for this this is so goddamn dumb you FUCKER you FUCKER FUCKER FUCKER

FUCKING COCKSUCKING FUCKER I HATE [the paper goes jagged as the pencil begins to cut through.

Ed burns this one, no Al jumpscare necessary.]

HEY FUCKER, THIS IS YOU:

[A drawing of what could reasonably be identified as ‘fucker, him’, AKA Roy Mustang. Speech bubbles sprout from it, the text written in uneven sizes and alternating capitals to express the mocking tone. In plain text, as follows:

“i made edward baaaaaaad because im a BAD person who does BAD things”

“no ones ever been worse than me, mr ashes for a heart, mr rubs cinders on everything he touches, mr has literally never once on purpose committed alchemys greatest GODDAMN SIN”

“penises are carrots edward. stop talking about penises and carrots. only i can talk about penises and carrots.”

“come check out my BOOKS they have GAY SEX IN THEM and ill PUT GAY SEX IN YOU but only cuz im SO ROTTEN IN MY CORE”

Ripped to shreds and scattered somewhere in Xerxes, then scattered on the wind.]

Roy,

i already know im not gonna send this letter. Al noticed that i’ve been furiously writing...someone… and after I told him. some. _some_. he said i should try writing a letter i wont send, starting with that in mind. guess its better than making another one i think youre gonna see

i dont

okay im not gonna cross stuff out. thats a one way ticket to tearing this up and eating it when al looks at me, and he said that im scaring the

shit its like he can TELL im just complaining about him.

okay. dont derail. dont. de

what about you though? you ever consider not derailing? not drastically changin course whenever it goddamn suits you? trains are meant to go on RAILS because if they go off of them PEOPLE DIE and barns ALMOST BURN DOWN and i have the BEST SEX OF MY LIFE WITH MY WIFE

i

metaphors arent good. im not good with

why do all your metaphors paint me as if im

why do all your metaphors _paint you like_

i guess painting is a metaphor

i cant paint. i can. im lucky i can still draw a circle. im really lucky that i dont ever goddamn need to if i dont feel like it. i would, i think if i could i would paint you.

then id piss on it

im just so angry. im always this angry at you. you reject me and im angry. you pursue me and i am FURIOUS. you write me a love letter and i am so full of rage i literally puke. you write me a love poem and im thinking about you instead of my

winrys pregnant. and i, WE werent trying for it, i guess we werent being careful, but,

you would like ling. i think. i know you would like what i do with ling. hes not as coy as you. but anyone you fuck in an alternate dimension full of blood and share a meal of boiled boot with… i guess coy doesnt really fit there. anymore

this was so stupid. als looking at me. i cant tear it up he’ll KNOW.

fuck what the fuck was the point of this im so confused.

i want winry

[That is the last letter Ed writes in the desert. He folds it into a small square, and he puts it in his breast pocket, and whenever Al makes _that face_ at him he pulls it out and shows he hasn’t destroyed it. Al doesn’t read it, because Al is _not allowed to read it_ , but Ed doesn’t destroy it. And that’s the truce.

He gets Winry soon enough. He gets Winry _in spades_. They’ve had bad fights before.

This fight makes the rest look like kid stuff. To an extent, they were all ‘kid’s stuff’. It doesn’t make it easier, to realize that they’re adults, that they’ve got to do better than the adults they knew did. That they’ve got to - not leave childish things behind. Winry is never going to leave her temper behind, Ed is never going to leave behind his wanderlust and his absentmindedness. But they can try harder. Do better. And they will. _They will._

He’s not his father. He won’t leave one day and not come back, he won’t forget to write or send letters. Winry isn’t her worst moments. She won’t throw things in anger, see her husband flinch from her screams.

They didn’t talk enough, before Ling. They don’t make that mistake again. They talk about everything. They talk about Roy. They talk about their wedding, and their wedding night, and Roy’s unfortunately large role in all of it. They talk about the letters since. They talk about what it means to be together, and to be together while apart. They talk about how to love more than one person at a time. They talk about how to be parents. They talk about how Winry’s parents both left for a war zone, and how Hohenheim assumed Trisha would freeze pristine for over a decade.

They talk about how to talk. That is the worst talk, and it is always happening inside all of the rest.

And finally, they talk about their future. Their futures, plural and singular, monolith and polycule. At night, Winry reads the letters Paninya writes her, and flushes furiously when an unexpected photograph falls out where Ed might see. She doesn’t show Ed the photographs. But sometimes, she reads parts of the letters out loud.

He recites to her the letter Roy sent before their wedding. It is not an easy recital. Nothing with Roy is easy. He shows her all of the letters, asks for her help in writing his new one.

She suggests a poem.

Winry is always the kind of girl to suggest a contest where there was a confession. He does not read her the poem he writes. He thinks if he ever had to read it out loud, had to think too hard about someone else seeing it, it would never be written. Winry, who only reads some of Paninya’s letters aloud, and very rarely bits of her own for context, does not push.]

Dear Roy,

there are 118 elements recognized by modern amestrian alchemists. i say ‘recognized’ because me and you both know that there’s a hell of a lot more than that, and that i refuse to have my research peer reviewed when i have no peers is the only reason there aren’t more.

im still going through the books and research al did on alkahestrists. its slow going, and the slowest going bit is that they think there are only - get this - _six elements_. it probably more accurately translates to six categories, or six…entities? I don’t know. their spirituality is all mixed into their science, to the point that if i want to understand any goddamn array past the most basic level im basically going to have to get a theological degree.

that said, it used to be even worse. some traditionalists even still swear by the moon, the sun, and the earth. that if you can build a strong enough connection to them you can control anything under their respective domains, which is like, everything in existence, including…menstrual cycles? somehow? al is convinced this is why alkahestry can heal and alchemy can’t, and i’ve learned to give him the benefit of the doubt.

attached is a poem copied from one of his books, so you can see what kind of maddening bullshit im talking about.

[In Xingese:

i wrote this poem and it only took me goddamn forever so fucking appreciate it, you hack. stacking goddamn haikus on top of each other like i wouldnt notice.

THE SUN.

a star, impossibly far away, impossibly large, impossibly brilliant.

it burns, it burns, it burns, it burns, it burns.

THE MOON.

a piece of solid matter in mindless void.

it reflects, it revolves, it obscures, it deflects, it evolves.

THE EARTH.

an impossibility, an improbability, an aberration.

it crawls, it breathes, it bleeds, it fights, it screams.

THE SUN. THE MOON.

how does one reflect?  
does one reflect as does a mirror? a reverse image, a falsity just close enough to be true?  
does one reflect as does a poet? stiff and distancing prose, a false narrator, a false subject, a false verse? a metaphor, a simile, an analogy, a desperate plea to read between lines painstakingly crafted?  
does one reflect as the moon does the sun: standing in the shadow of flames so bright and so large they make one bright as well?

how does one revolve?  
does one revolve as a celestial body orbits another? to circulate, to gyrate, to loop.  
does one revolve as a dancer revolves, hand clasped tightly in their partners, laughter springing through the air? to pirouette, to spin, to trust.  
does one revolve as a philosopher around his absolute moral truths? to dedicate, to determine, to commit.

how does one obscure?  
does one obscure motivations? picture: a boy walks into an alley. a woman is dead. there is no reason for it. a man stands over her, and he has none worthy prepared.  
does one obscure truths? picture: a boy smells something nostalgic. it is the smell of wind from the south across his small town. it smells like roasted meat. childhood nostalgia is often felt most accurately as a punch to the jaw for the boy. this one is no different. the man walks out of the alley. the boy lays in it, beside the woman, and tries to reconcile irreconcilable truths.  
does one obscure lies? picture: a boy in the desert. near him: a woman, fully alive. far away: a man, fully arrogant.

how does one deflect?  
does one deflect suspicion? picture: the most motherfucking suspicious little twat of a prodigy to ever exist. he has four limbs and he uses all of them to attempt to murder his way through an exam.  
does one deflect accusations? picture: the MOST motherFUCKing suspicious little TWAT of an ARROGANT prodigy to EVER exist. he has one giant mouth and he uses it to hint to everyone he meets that his secrets are dark, they are deep, they are interesting, they are valuable, and they are life ruining.  
does one deflect a hand outstretched for comfort? picture: THE _most_ mother _fucking_ devastated little _twat_ of an _arrogant child prodigy_ to _ever_ exist. he has two eyes, two ears, and they have both just witnessed a girl die in a manner more horrific than can be comprehended, in a house he was placed in for safekeeping. later he will almost die. this will not be unrelated.

and how…does one… evolve?  
the moon revolves around the sun. the moon reflects the brightness of the sun, in increments, before obscuring it again. this is because it is a moon. it is a rock, trapped in an orbiting cycle, around another rock.

so how does a moon evolve?  
it evolves because the moon is a deflection. it is an embarrassing metaphor for a hard to say truth. the moon is you, and i need you. i need you in the sunset, and i need you in the dawn, and i need you in the sunlight, and to light the nights that are deepest dark without you.  
i need the moon to say an innocuous phrase, and i need the moon to mean something innocuous, not whatever the fuck the moon thinks i’ll understand that innocuous phrase to mean. i need the moon to realize that trust is not earned when one is shoved from the dark into blinding light, but when a light is offered when one is lost in a blinding dark. i need the moon to allow itself to be seen, as i am seen inevitably by it. seen in my flaws and in my sorrows, in my tempers and my temptations.

how does the moon evolve? it chooses to.

THE SUN. THE EARTH.

the sun burns, high above. untouchable and touching all. in the soil crawls the worms, across the roads crawl the travelers, and across a desert crawls a man. high, high, high above, the sun burns.

the sun warms the soil, warms the oceans, warms the summer rains. the sun grows the plants, the plants feed the animals, the animals die, the plants rot, and it all feeds the worms. the earth breathes on its own rhythms. no one can deny that. the earth breathes because the sun gave it lungs. no one can deny that. the sun burns, and it is good.

the sun cuts through the skin of the beasts on the earth, and through the skin of the earth itself. the beasts mutate where it touches them for too long, because what the sun touches it changes, and change is brutal. change is cells performing in capacities they weren’t meant to, growing out of control, growing until they collapse under the weight of their own immortal hubris. the sun cuts through the skin of the earth: droughts, cracks in the earth, sand and deserts and steam rising as the rivers dry. the earth bleeds because of the sun. the sun is the only reason the earth has blood to bleed. these are irreconcilable statements. these are only true in tandem, and they are always true. the sun burns, and it _is_.

here is a secret not many would understand, even if explained in excruciating detail: I am the way I am because I want to be that way. the earth is fighting. the earth is screaming. the earth is always doing so over practically nothing at all.

and so when i want no one to look closely: the earth is fighting. the earth is screaming. don’t take it too seriously. it’s always doing that. the sun is burning it, and the earth fights back, the sun is burning it, and the earth screams, but it doesn’t matter because the sun is _always_ burning it and the earth is _always_ screaming and fighting.

the day the sun wed the earth, the moon followed the earth into the backyard for some air. the earth was flaming hot at its core, because the moon had sent a really fucking inflammatory letter. the earth said some things. the moon said some things. some actions were taken. the barn didn’t burn down, and that was that.

(the earth is fighting and screaming so it must not be too important, don’t look closely, this happens all the time and it happens all the time. this is ordinary. this is natural. this is unreasonable and inappropriate and isn’t that comfortable? to think that?)

the letters didn’t stop.

(the earth is composing poetry. stop the fucking presses, the earth is sitting down and writing about its feelings and occasionally using apostrophes like a big boy. the earth is using metaphors on top of metaphors and thinking about how its words will be received before it says them. the earth is copying it down in careful script from the many drafts - the earth _wrote drafts_. the earth is not screaming. the earth is probably presenting this as a fight, but that’s only force of habit. the earth is definitely serious.)

THE EARTH. THE MOON.

the moon sucks. do you know why it sucks? because its distant. because its untouchable. because if we were to touch it we would have no idea how, no idea of its dangers or its necessities. because we look up at it and we say, my god, how beautiful, how stunning, how romantic. because we only ever _look_.

the earth sucks. do you know why it sucks? because it’s right fucking here. because we’re always goddamn touching it and tasting it and smelling it and hearing it. because familiarity breeds contempt and there’s nothing more familiar than home. it sucks because we look at it everyday and we sometimes remember why we haven’t torched the thing to the ground yet, but mostly we wonder if it would be better if we did.

i guess from the perspective of a moon man, that could make the earth seem pretty romantic. the grass is always greener on the other side, and the moon doesn’t even _have_ grass. it probably doesn’t even have significant amounts of green. anything exotic enough can seem enviable, and anything familiar enough can seem trying.

the earth and the moon both suck because all they do is dance around each other. the earth trapped the moon in its orbit too long ago to remember, an enormous initial crash and then a distant wary codependency. the moon pulls and pushes the waves, every heartbeat of the world dependent on its continued gravity, and its comfortable there, probably. the moon looks nice from the earth. the moon man looks envious to the earth man, in his solitude. the grass is always greener on the other side, and the moon man never has to get out the lawn mower on the weekends.

i don’t know where im going with this.

i’ve reworked this section so many times that winry’s started to yell at me for raising the electricity bill. i guess where i’m going is that i fucking hate you. that’s a bad way to write a love letter, i know. that’s a horrifying way to try and end a love poem, yeah.

so i fucking hate you. i envy you. i desire you. i cant stand that you’re distant and when you’re close i want nothing more than to punch your skull in. i look at the dip of your lips and i think, god, my blood pressure is fucking rising. i look at the dip where you unbuttoned your collar just a bit and i think, who the fuck let him out of the house like that? who the fuck let me see him? who the fuck let me care that i was seeing him? why the fuck am i so mad at him for being pretty and kind when i don’t expect it and good when i never could be, when there’s better things to be mad about? why the fuck can’t i hate him when i hate the way he makes me feel?

why the fuck don’t i actually hate feeling this way?

so yeah. i fucking hate you. that’s my love confession. treat it gently, handle it with care. whisper obliquely about stroking and wink at the idea of a future with me. wimper over how you’re not good enough, that’s practically co-fucking-misserating at this point. whine about how it’ll never work, about how you’d rip me to shreds, about how i’ll grow to hate you. im just telling you that you don’t have to worry about that. it’s already been done. i’ve hated you far longer than i’ve loved you, bastard.

i’ve hated you since you walked in the door of the automail shop, because hate was about all i had left that hadn’t hurt me. if i had room for hating anyone through the surgery, i would have hated you. during recovery i hated you with every single breath, every time i threw up because i pushed too hard. i hated you through enlistment, i hated you through nina and maria ross, i hate you so deeply that i don’t know how to tear it out, just add new reasons to hate you. i hate you because you’re a good person, and because you made me hate you by not acting like one. i hate that i understand why you did it. i hate that it helped.

i hated you when i realized i was attracted to you, and i hated you when i realized i loved you and it was too late, and i hate you even now, even now, and i hate you because i am begging. i hate you because im so bad at begging. i hate you because this is not how you seduce someone, how you ask them to be a part of your life, and i never learned how to do it with anything but excruciatingly awkward honesty.

THE SUN. THE EARTH. THE MOON.

i’ve talked a lot about metaphors falling apart. im better at poetry than you but that doesnt make me good. so here’s one that wont, that shouldnt.

the sun, the earth, the moon. they exist together. they exist in tandem. they exist in orbit. they exist that way because they always have, and because it’s too late to change any of it without catastrophic collateral damage. they make each other worse sometimes, but they only exist to be made worse because they allow each others existence.

the sun, the earth, the moon. they exist.

the sun, the earth. they touch whenever they want, which is every day.

the moon, the earth. they exert extreme forces from a distance, never touching, glimpses in the night.

the sun, the moon. they occasionally eclipse the other. but not entirely. they are in different spheres, usually. that is where they are comfortable. that is where they both benefit. that is where they work well together.

the moon, the earth. let them touch. let them _touch_. even if its only under the cover of night. even if its only in messages launched through space. even if it might pale in comparison to the fantasy, to the romanticism. **let them touch**.

End of Xingese.]

Best Regards,

Edward.

**Author's Note:**

> find ang3lba3 on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/cryingiscooltm)


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